Chapter 31 #2
“Imagine my surprise when I realized soon after that Cameron was alone and you weren’t anywhere to be seen.
” She scratched her cheek with the edge of her blade.
“’Twas baffling, so I decided not to act until I’d learned the truth.
As time passed, I realized that I had come to the future a pair of years after Cameron had.
I assumed that you would arrive eventually, so I waited.
And whilst I waited, I thought about how to hurt Cameron best. I could see he valued his business, so I thought to strike there and let the rest come as it would.
I looked for someone to aid me, then decided on Nathan Ainsworth. ”
“How in the world did you meet him?” Sunny asked in surprise.
Gilly shot her a cold look. “Do you think me incapable of presenting myself as a fine lady?”
“Of course not,” Sunny said quickly. “It just seems so coincidental that you should have chosen Nathan when Nathan’s father and Alistair Cameron were such good friends.”
“And you think I didn’t know that as well?” Gilly demanded. “I’m just as capable as the next Highlander of reading the paper.”
“Of course you are,” Sunny said with a nod. “I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.”
Gilly didn’t look particularly happy with that answer, but she continued on just the same.
“I found Nathan at a racing track, losing enormous sums on the horses, and introduced myself as a distant relative of Alistair’s.
Once he knew I loathed Cameron as he did, it wasn’t hard to convince him to help me.
I’ve been working off and on at Ainsworth Manor as a chef for the past three months.
” She smiled briefly. “That makes it easier to slip things into the stew, don’t you know. ”
Sunny swallowed with difficulty. She wasn’t at all surprised. It made her wonder, absently, if it had been Gilly to try to poison Cameron in the past, not Giric. For all she knew, Gilly had poisoned Giric’s father as well.
So much death. It was no wonder Gilly was crazy.
“I knew losing his business would hurt Cameron’s pride,” Gilly continued easily, “but in time, I realized that wouldn’t be enough for me.
I wanted to destroy his heart. I looked for you, but you still weren’t in Scotland or England and I didn’t know your surname.
I finally saw your sister in the village a year or two ago.
At first I thought she was you, but I soon realized my mistake.
It was tempting to kill her, because I knew it would grieve you, but it wasn’t what I wanted.
I watched her marry that very handsome MacLeod lad and suddenly there you were as well.
” She smiled. “And then I knew the time to act had come.”
Sunny closed her eyes briefly. Madelyn would have died and Sunny wouldn’t have had a clue as to why. She swallowed, hard. “Your patience was rewarded.”
“And it serves me still, for I’m patient enough to leave you alive now, when I can scarce keep myself from plunging my dirk into your breast.”
“Why me?” Sunny managed.
“I already told you,” she shouted suddenly. She took a deep breath, then visibly forced herself to calm down. “Because it will grieve Cameron to watch you die.”
“But why do you want to hurt Cameron?”
“Because he never wanted me,” she said in a low voice. “I wed Breac before I realized who I truly wanted was his brother. I never said anything to Cameron, but he should have known. I willed him to know, but he ignored me.”
Sunny suspected that Cameron had been better off that way.
“I knew I was destined to be mistress of Cameron Hall,” Gilly continued, “which left me with little choice but to have Cameron slain.” She looked at Sunny archly.
“I started that battle, of course. My kin were coming for Cameron, to repay him for not wanting me, to repay him for standing in the way of what should have been mine. And then Breac was stupid enough to take the blade meant for Cameron.”
“But Cameron was going to wed you,” Sunny ventured very hesitantly. “After that battle.”
Gilly’s change of mood was frightening in its swiftness. She drew herself up. “Do you think I would have lowered myself to have him then?” she said with contempt. “After he’d spurned me? After he’d killed my husband? After he’d looked at you as he’d never looked at me?”
Sunny could only stare at Gilly, mute. She was stunned to realize that Cameron had lost his brothers because of the machinations of the woman standing in front of her.
She didn’t doubt that Gilly had helped Giric turn the clan against Cameron as well.
She closed her eyes briefly. So much death and sorrow all because Gilly had wanted someone who hadn’t wanted her back.
Gilly sharpened the syringe with the knife.
“So, here we are, waiting for your lover. He’ll watch me kill you, then I’ll watch him rot in some jail while I take over Cameron Hall and enjoy all the luxuries he takes for granted.
” She smiled. “I want him to suffer every day of every month of every year for decades to come, knowing what he had and what he lost.” She looked absently at the needle she was sharpening.
“I wish he would hurry so I could be finished with you.”
Sunny opened her mouth to tell her that Cameron was probably not going to just walk in when she realized she was wrong.
She realized that Cameron was leaning against the ruined edge of doorway nearest her.
She suspected by the absolute lack of expression on his face that he’d heard quite a bit of what Gilly had just said.
He pushed away from the doorway and walked into the middle of the hall. He stopped ten feet behind Gilly.
“Hello, sister,” he said calmly.
Sunny opened her mouth to warn him that Gilly wasn’t alone, but she supposed he already knew that.
She was positive of it when she watched Patrick, Derrick, and Ian slither through various other windows and doors.
She could see other men slipping past other openings and guessed that the entire castle was now surrounded by men loyal to Cameron.
What a difference a few centuries made.
The skirmish with Gilly’s men was very brief, but that didn’t serve Sunny much.
Gilly had leaped across the dungeon opening and grabbed her by the hair before Cameron could reach her.
Sunny felt the prick of something against her neck.
She didn’t bother to identify what. A knife across her trachea, a needle in her jugular; it was all the same as far as death was concerned.
“Gilly, let her go,” Cameron said easily. "’Tis me you want anyway, isn’t it?”
“After she’s dead,” Gilly agreed. “Or would it be worse for you to watch someone else have her whilst she lived still? These aren’t all the men I have at my command, you know.
Nathan will be coming soon and bringing others with him.
Perhaps you would like to watch him and his men have her. Would that please you?”
“It would bother me,” Cameron conceded.
Sunny looked at him, but his gaze was fixed on Gilly. She wished she could have gotten her hands down from over her head. Then again, she wasn’t exactly sure how far she could run even if she managed that. She felt terrible.
“Get rid of them,” Gilly spat, pointing to Patrick and the others.
Cameron made a motion with his hand. Sunny watched from her very uncomfortable position as Patrick, Ian, and Derrick made a very loud production of leaving.
She could hear them cursing for quite a while before their voices faded to nothing.
She didn’t doubt they would double back and join whoever else was out there, but it wouldn’t do her any good if Gilly slit her throat.
Soon, it was just her and Gilly by the wall and Cameron motionless in the middle of the Fergusson great hall.
He was so beautiful, standing there with the sunlight streaming down on his dark hair, it was all she could do not to weep at the sight of him.
She could hardly believe she was so close to having him, yet even closer to losing him.
“Since we’re waiting for Nathan,” he said carefully, “what shall we do to pass the time? Would you care to tell me how you came to be here?”
Gilly’s hand tightened in Sunny’s hair. “Don’t distract me.”
“I’m merely satisfying my curiosity,” he said mildly. “I’d also like to know what it is you want. Besides me watching my lady suffer at Nathan’s hands, that is.”
Sunny found her head slammed back against the rock so hard that she saw stars. Well, at least Gilly had let her go. Gilly stepped away and stood at the edge of the dungeon pit. Sunny was enormously tempted to just try to kick her into it, but she caught the warning look Cameron threw her.
Let me handle this.
She supposed she didn’t have a choice. After all, she was the one chained to the wall.
She took a deep breath and tried to relax as she listened to Gilly repeat the story she’d given earlier.
It was done without embellishment, so Sunny supposed it was accurate enough.
Cameron didn’t move, didn’t try to rush Gilly, he just stood there silent and still.
Gilly soon turned from telling her tale to berating Cameron for every imagined slight she’d ever suffered.
And still Cameron merely stood there and listened.
But Sunny could tell he wasn’t just paying attention to her demented ramblings.
He gave off the same aura he had in the woods so long ago, as if he knew exactly what was going on around him.
He shifted at one point so he was partially facing the door as well as Gilly.
Sunny understood why a moment later when Nathan Ainsworth himself walked into the hall.
She couldn’t see how this was an improvement.
Nathan was less impressive in person than in his pictures, and she supposed that probably bothered him quite a bit. It bothered her quite a bit that he had a gun in his hand.
Gilly turned to Nathan. “What took you so long?”